Learning objectives
Click on the links below to access learning objectives for each chapter of the book.Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Designing and delivering services and products
- Chapter 3: Designing Services and Products
- Chapter 4: Delivering Services
- Chapter 5: Making Products
- Chapter 6: Location and Layout
Chapter 1: Managing Operations
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Explain the role of operations management in an organization
- Appreciate the dimensions that make up the operations management task
- Identify where the operations function fits within an organization
- Illustrate the crucial role of operations management in organizational success
- Set the scene for the rest of the book
Chapter 2: Operations Strategy
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Appreciate how, in large organizations, strategy has evolved into three levels – corporate, business unit and functional
- Distinguish between an executive’s day-to-day and strategic roles
- Identify how business unit and functional strategies interface with each other
- Appreciate why the critical first step in developing a functional strategy is agreeing the order-winners and qualifiers for the different markets in which a business competes
- Understand the strategic mix within most organizations of being both market-driven and market-driving
- Develop and implement an operations strategy
Chapter 3: Designing services and products
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Appreciate the key role of new service and product development as the lifeblood of an organization
- Identify the alternative strategies in service and product innovation
- Differentiate between long-term and tactical programmes
- List the steps involved in designing and developing resources and products
- Recognize and use the insights that can be gained by placing services or products into the correct positions on their respective life cycles and into the portfolio analysis grid
- Select from and use a range of techniques and approaches related to design.
Chapter 4: Delivering services
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Recognize the technical and business requirements that need to be met when delivering services
- Identify the distinctive characteristics of service operations
- Identify the difference between categories of service and types of service delivery system
- Explain the approach to the overall design of service delivery systems
- List the key phases in the detailed design of service delivery systems
- Give examples of the impact of IT on the design of service delivery systems
Chapter 5: Making Products
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Recognize the technical and business requirements when making products
- Describe the manufacturing process decision and how it is influenced by the volume of demand
- Define the different types of manufacturing process – project, jobbing, batch, line and continuous processing
- Identify the difference between categories of product and types of manufacturing process
- Appreciate the key business implications of the types of manufacturing process
- Explain why hybrids such as cells may be introduced
Chapter 6: Location and Layout
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Recognize the levels at which decisions about location must be made, and the background issues that affect the choice of location for a facility or outlet
- Describe the various techniques for choosing a location and explain how they work
- Outline the factors that influence the choice of layout and the key features of each of the basic types of layout, as well as the layouts for hybrid delivery systems
- Explain the process of layout design
Chapter 7: Managing Capacity
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Understand the nature of capacity and the mix of resources involved
- Appreciate the purpose of managing capacity and the impact of having too little and too much capacity
- Explain how to define and measure capacity in different organizations
- Appreciate the differences between capacity, utilization and efficiency
- Understand the factors involved in determining the level of capacity required
- Appreciate the demand-related and capacity-related issues of determining capacity levels
- Explain the steps in capacity planning
- Recognize the key factors in managing demand and capacity
Chapter 8: Scheduling and executing operations
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Appreciate the key role of operations scheduling within a business
- Recognize the different types of operations scheduling system and for which businesses each is appropriate
- Formulate a simple bar chart and network analysis
- Explain the elements of a material requirements planning system
- Appreciate how manufacturing resource planning and enterprise resource planning have developed and how they supplement a material requirements planning system
- Explain how enterprise resource planning works
- Understand the just-in-time approach both in terms of its role as a scheduling system and as a philosophy of operations management
- Understand how optimized production technology works
Chapter 9: Managing Inventory
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Explain the different types of inventory and their roles
- Show the presence of the different types of operations inventory in manufacturing processes and service delivery systems
- Review the approaches to address the key inventory questions relating to:
What items to hold in stock?
How much to hold, and how much and when to order - Examine the different inventory systems and identify which should be used for different types of business
- Understand how to analyse inventory in order to keep levels to a minimum
Chapter 10: Managing Quality
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Explain what quality is and why it is important
- Understand the stages involved in managing quality conformance
- Apply alternative tools and techniques to improve quality conformance
- Critically evaluate the quality conformance levels within an organization and suggest improvements
- Understand the alternative approaches to managing quality
- Propose and substantiate quality improvements within a given operational context
Chapter 11: Managing the Supply Chain
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Define what a supply chain is and outline the steps that make up the chain
- Explain the factors that affect the design of a supply chain, including the decision to make or buy, the alternatives to making or buying and the issues surrounding outsourcing, both domestically and offshore
- Understand the processes of managing and developing supply chains, and the techniques used in these approaches
- Outline the benefits of effectively managing supply chains
Chapter 12: Improving Operations
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:- Explain why companies need to improve their operations
- Understand how operations can be improved to release cash, improve market support and reduce costs
- Apply alternative improvement approaches, tools and techniques to identify improvement opportunities within a company
- Critically evaluate the differing improvement approaches used by organizations
- Understand the alternative approaches to making improvements
- Propose and substantiate improvements within a given operational context